User talk:Jessemerrill8

Affirmative Action can cause problems people could never think of. In 2008, Abigail Fisher, a white student, was denied acceptance into the University of Texas. Not because of her grades, but because of her race. She filed a lawsuit saying that the quota violated her constitutional rights. To her, the quota was unfair that she wasn’t allowed to get into the University of Texas just because of her color. She had all the credits and grades and was even in the top 12% of her class in Austin Texas, but because the school needed a certain number of genders and race, she was denied acceptance. How, if at all, should affirmative action for workers and students be changed? That is a big debate in today's world. Affirmative Action should be undone for all students and workers because certain races and genders think that quotas are giving people a fair advantage while applying to a job, but is giving people an advantage based on how you look really fair? Yes, racism and sexism are still very well alive in the United States, they may always be. However, there are other ways to prevent having racist or sexist outcomes for job interviews and college acceptances other than making a quota that forces companies and schools to turn down someone of higher talent. Some people think that Affirmative Action is good and makes getting jobs and acceptance into school easier. Citizens tend to believe that they will be judged based on the color of their skin or their gender. In some cases it has been clearly proven that people have not gotten a job just because they are hispanic or haven’t gotten a job because they are a girl. Those are some examples of why Affirmative Action was made into a law, “The idea of affirmative action arose as a means of counteracting the laws and practices that had long barred blacks, other minorities and women from full participation of American life”. (Affirmative 1) At the time, the law of affirmative action made sense and seemed like it was giving everyone a fair shot. The law of affirmative action states that “every company must ensure that women or minorities are hired in certain proportions to other groups”. (LaNoue) People think that is fair because otherwise racist people would “only” hire the stereotypical whites and males and not give others a chance with their talents. To make everything “equal”, quotas started to form and become a law so in cases like ‘Just because someone is older, if they have good experience they could be eligible for the job.” (Affirmative 3) An example of a quota can be for every 5 white people you hire, you need at least 3 blacks, 2 hispanics and 1 muslims. Or for every 8 males you hire you need at least 2 women. To minorities, this seemed fair because now everybody is forced to have a certain amount of diversity and not to discriminate based on what you look like or the color of your skin or your age. Other people believe that affirmative action is not fair and can give people a head start. In one article they express that “Affirmative Action merely turns the tide of discrimination against white males and impairs race relations” (Affirmative 1). What that quote is saying that by allowing other races to have an advantage at getting a job or admission into a school is completely unfair to other races who are not in the quota system. So if blacks and whites are not in the quota system but hispanics are, than they automatically have to have some people get accepted over others, does that seem fair to you? A 25 year old male named Tom from Buffalo New York was applying to be a Buffalo city firefighter. He had taken the physical and written tests and passed with flying colors because he was truly talented and had worked very hard with studying the questions and to get himself into physical shape. He was number 103 on a list of hundreds of people who had apply for the job so he was very high up on the list. He ended up not getting the job because for every 1 white firefighters hired, 3 black firefighters had to be hired as well. He was devastated. Now, someone who is less talented or not as in good of shape as Tom was, is trying to put out your house fire but maybe he can’t do as well of a job as Tom because he just isn’t as much as a right fit for the job (Merrill). That is where the question of “is affirmative action really fair” comes into play. College students have had many similar experiences with what Tom had to go through. “The quota system used by the university of California in its admissions process violates the 14th amendment, but also rules that race can be legally considered a factor in admissions”. (Chronology) People to get accepted because of their skin color to help fill the quotas and do not base the full acceptance based on how their grades are. There are certain ways to fix the issue, but by allowing people to get an advantage in the application process just because of their appearance is not the correct answer because by doing that although a lot of people think it is making everything fair and equal, you really are just making it unfair for others and are not actually looking at their skills or talents or grades just because you have to fill a quota. This can also apply with gender. “A girl did not get into school because too many girls had already been accepted” (Affirmative 2) That once again is an example of not looking at the actual grades or talent, but just trying to fill a quota. People can keep arguing two sides of the story but nothing will come about it unless we actually try to come up with solutions to fix the problem of Affirmative Action. One idea that President Bush came up with is to not do face to face interviews (Bush). This helps with preventing judgment based on appearance. An interviewer saw someone who walked in who maybe wasn’t able to afford very nice clothing because they don’t have a job yet, then this would prevent the interviewer from thinking rude thoughts before actually getting to know them. Solutions for prejudgment include simply just putting a screen in between the applicant and the interviewer (Affirmative 3). Then you can ask them questions about their skills because there is really no reason that you have to physically see the person. Another way to try to prevent judgmental admissions is by not asking for race or gender on an application. This way before even asking for people to come in for an official interview, they do not toss the application just because of their race or gender. By creating these simple ideas to help prevent judgment from other people, we can eliminate affirmative action and these quotas. Affirmative action was designed to help people because of past racist and unfair practices. However, by doing that, it reversed the process and discriminates against others by establishing quotas that unfairly impact people today, like Tom and Abigail Fisher who I had mentioned before had nothing to do with past discriminatory practices. People like them who studied, worked hard to be prepared for the testing, and did well enough to be hired if hiring was based on merit, continued to get past over so they could meet their "quotas". No one will ever convince me that is fair. I am not disputing the fact that in the past, racist policies existed and maybe people were discriminated against. But by imposing quotas, it completely reversed the discrimination, against people like them. Another opinion is that if the United States were never going to do away with quota hiring, then at least do quota hiring and still allow people like them to be canvassed and interviewed and have a chance for the job. In other words, back about 30 years ago day, the City of Buffalo had to hire three minorities for every one white person. By doing that, they filled up their training classes of 40-50 firefighters without ever getting to Tom like I had mentioned before. By the time they would have gotten to him, the hiring list expired (each hiring list typically last four years) and that is so unfair. So, extend the length of the list to allow people who scored well but were passed over because of affirmative action goals, a chance to be interviewed and given the job too. Not arguing against hiring via affirmative action quotas, but let the last last longer for people who scored like 90% and above. (Merrill) Affirmative action is also unfair to those who want to attend a certain college, study hard to get great score on entrance exams and do well in school, only to be passed over because of college admission quotas. Make sense? It's not fair. People should not be allowed to skip steps in the application process and acceptance process based of how they look period. (Bush ) These ideas of how to prevent judgmental interviews are so simple and could fairly well work and now jobs and colleges will actually have who deserves to be there and has the full talent and is a right fit for the school or job.

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